INTERVIEW: Defibrillator use on the rise

02/08/2018

Implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICDs) are being surgically inserted in patients at increasing rates at a cost of almost $155 million per year.

Head of Centenary’s Clinical Cardiac Genetics Group Dr Jodie Ingles, has led the Australian-first study which analysed data from the National Hospital Morbidity Database, and was published in the Medical Journal of Australia.

“An ICD looks a bit like a pacemaker. It’s a little box implanted under the chest wall with a lead which goes into the heart. Essentially, it sits there and monitors the heart’s rhythm and it has one purpose. That is, if your heart goes into an abnormal rhythm that could cause cardiac arrest and subsequently sudden death, it will actually charge up and deliver a shock,” Dr Ingles told ABC Far North Queensland presenter Kier Shorey.